My garage isn't that bad, I probably forgot to mention that it has a small bar, a digital progector, screen and 5.1 surround sound system and a lock on the door to keep my children out. This is where I usually write this blog, work on the web site and generally hide from the world.
The last few days have been a mixture of really quiet, too much drink, large crowds of people and family get togethers.
On boxing day we, (Christine, my two daughters and me), headed to Christine's family farm for a few days and spent time there eating too much, playing with lots of nephews, playing board games and watching lots of TV. On the Monday I decided to leave the farm and go for a walk, so I headed into the local town, Howwood, and met up with a old friend of mine, Andy. As you have probably guessed, we went for a few beers. We went to The Railway Inn, there is a review on the pub page, and settled in for a few drinks and a catch up. Unfortunately I didn't have much to eat before walking down to Howwood so the drinks went to my head almost straight away, you can probably hear me already begin to slur my words in the video below.
Unfortunately thats not the worst of it.
I then decided to try and walk off the drink by walking back to Howwood, by castle Semple Loch, by the river, through the trees, along a completely ice covered cycle track, in the dark. As youve probably guessed, this didn't go too well. I got lost quite quickly and ended up in some fields, got stuck on a barbed wire fence, (completely ripping my jeans), and was very disorientated. Luckily I saw a land mark that I recognised, (it was an old folly on top of a hill), I knew that this was close to the track I wanted and I was heading in the right direction as it is also close to the Howwood road. At this point my phone went and it was Christine asking where I was, I told her, at first she went mad at me and then she calmd down and said she would drive along the road towards the cycle track. Half an hour later I was in the car being taken back to the farm, where I was sent to bed. The following morning I had a lot of apologies to make, I also had a hangover that could kill a horse.
We left Howwood on the Wednesday afternoon and headed home. We had a restfull day on the Thursday as I was working on the Friday, hogmany. I am an audio visual technician, but I also work occasionaly as a camera man at large events. Edinburgh has the largest hogmany party in the world and I was working as camera operator No1 on the Waverly stage. There were four bands on this stage including "The Coral" and "Newton Fauklner". I love working at this event as I think I get one of the best seats in the house ! Check out the video below, this is how I brought in the new year.
With the festive holidays nearly over and people starting to get back into a working frame of mind, I decided to go for one more night out. In my home town of Broxburn, at my local, The Masonic. Check out the video below, which was filmed at closing time just as we were leaving.